Help the Bees 🐝
How about instead of eating insects, helping some bees? We all know they are indirectly responsible for almost one-third of the food we consume and without these hard workers, many fruits and vegetables could cease to exist as they largely depend on bee pollination.
Unfortunately over the last few decades we have seen a massive global decline nearly halving wild bee populations, raising alarm for our overall food ecosystem.
Bees are a true marvel in creation and could quite literally be considered as flying supercomputers where one might rightfully ask: who programmed these incredible creatures with an almost evolutionary intelligence?
No wonder bees have fascinated humans throughout history, so much so that some of the first coins in the world even had bee symbols on them:
Indeed there are many other amazing aspects about bees that we’re hardly aware of, for instance did you know that
honey contains a substance that helps your brain work better?
one spoon of honey is enough to sustain human life for 24 hours?
bees saved people from starvation?
In fact, honey was so significant to the Ancient Egyptians that it was used as currency and to pay taxes.
More than just Honey!
Honey is obviously one of the most precious and well known things bees produce. However what’s lesser known is that it’s filled with live enzymes.
Unfortunately these enzymes die when they come in contact with metal. So the best way to eat honey is actually with a wooden spoon, or if you can't find one, use plastic.
The benefits of honey are well known, but what actually happens to our bodies when we start eating honey?
Honey isn’t the only quality product bees bring about. Did you know that propolis is one of the most powerful natural antibiotics? Or have you heard of “Royal Jelly”?
Interestingly enough, queen bees and worker bees are genetically identical organisms and they only become two different life forms because the queen get to eat this “royal jelly”.
The wax bees produce is also special. Not just in the form of natural candles but also shaped into “beeswax cloths” which have antibacterial properties to keep your food fresher for longer. It’s perfect for cheese, bread, sliced fruit or vegetables.
And have you heard of the benefits of Bee Pollen?
Finally the item most people are afraid of (and some even have to fear for their lives from) — delivered right by the sting of the bee itself: its venom.
Bee venom is a complex mixture of different proteins. The main ingredient is called “Melittin” which protects the cells, has a highly anti-inflammatory effect and is 100 times stronger than cortisone.
Scientists discovered that this component was able to kill cancer cells in just 60 minutes1 by penetrating the surface of the cell or the plasma membrane, forming holes or pores, causing the cell to die. The researchers also found that melittin blocks key messaging or signaling pathways that allow cancer cells to communicate with each other to multiply and grow.
Bee venom therapy has been a common folk remedy for treating arthritis, back pain and rheumatism for over 3,000 years in China, where bee stings are thought to repair damaged cells, stave off bacteria and ease inflammation. I remember my great grandmother who was happy to be stung by bees and rejoiced having been delivered a free dose of the therapy. She lived well into her 90ties.
Is this perhaps also why beekeepers live longer than most of us?2
Heavenly Architects living in Hell
Most people are aware that pesticides3 and fungicides4 have detrimental effects on bee populations as such chemicals harm them either directly or indirectly by damaging their food sources.
But it’s not only chemicals which harm the bees. Our modern and ultra-connected way of life (with massive exposure to radiation from cell towers, wifi, etc.) could cause entire bee colonies to collapse5.
Luckily there are solutions which could help the bees, for instance by placing shungite nuggets and powders on beehives.
Shungite is a very ancient material, often used in relation to improving water quality and to manage 5G and other forms of wireless radiation. Shungite contains a special form of carbon (“C60”) and it seems that bees like its effects a lot:
But also if you simply consider using bee bricks instead of a standard brick or block in construction, you could help create a habitat for solitary bees, promoting biodiversity.
“There is a masterpiece, the hexagonal cell, which borders on perfection. No living being, not even the human being, has achieved, in the center of its sphere, what the bee has achieved by itself: and if the intelligence of another world were to descend and ask the earth for the most perfect creation, I would offer the humble honeycomb.” — Maurice Maeterlinck, The Life of the Bee, 1924
Bees themselves really are quite the incredible architects. Above left shows one of the world's largest honeycombs harvested by the Kattunayakan tribal people who live in the forests of the Nilgiris Biosphere Reserve in South India and the center image indicates how tropical stingless bees build honeycombs in spiraling, multi-terraced shapes using the same mathematical model which explains how crystals grow. Given how bees build their nests, they also have a deep impact on the structure of the soil itself.
Unexpected Healing
If you’ve read my posts around frequencies and the magic of resonance, you know that there are inherent powers in sound, music and vibration which can help us heal more holistically and sometimes with the most unexpected results.
Meet the soothing healing frequencies of bees, which are said to have the ability to cure Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) over the course of a few months when being exposed to the sound of bee hives regularly.
There is also a so-called “mad honey” which is reported to have helped beat 1,000 men at war. This hallucinogenic substance is produced when bees pollinate rhododendron flowers in the remote mountainside towns of the Black Sea region.
The dark, reddish, “mad honey,”6 known as deli bal in Turkey, contains an ingredient from rhododendron nectar called grayanotoxin — a natural neurotoxin that, even in small quantities, brings on light-headedness and sometimes, hallucinations. In the 1700s, the Black Sea region traded this potent produce with Europe, where the honey was infused with drinks to give boozers a greater high than alcohol could deliver.
Is this the reason why certain organizations have an interest in mass killing bees?7
Bees, the Weather, Electricity and Air Quality
Did you know that swarming bees generate shocking amounts of electricity that can potentially impact the weather? A recent study by researchers at the University of Bristol has shown that bees produce electricity equivalent to thunderstorms.8
Bees now also “work” at the Bologna airport in Italy. One hundred thousand bees were “hired” and distributed within a radius of 7 kilometers all around the airport to monitor the air quality. Housed in eight hives located in four strategic points around the airport, their “duties” include going about their usual business such as pollinating plants and producing honey which researchers take for sampling. If they find any bad substances in it, they will start working on recommendations to improve air quality.
But now the bees need us. Just like this wonderful woman helps them, more of us could play part in helping the bees so they can help us. You don’t have to become a beekeeper yourself, just leaving some shungite dust or certain types of mushroom mycelium laying around for the bees to pick it up could be of great service to the bees, humanity and nature at large.
Benefits of Becoming a Beekeeper
If you do have an interest in becoming a beekeeper, rest assured it’s one of the most beneficial, interesting and rewarding skills you could possibly acquire.
Whether you do it just for the benefit of nature (e.g. in the form of a log hive as described in the below video), or for making your own honey, it’s definitely worth the time and effort.
To introduce my family to the intriguing beauty of beekeeping, I used the easyBeeBox system from a few clever startup founders in Germany. The site is in German but they ship worldwide. I love their idea of enabling aspiring beekeepers to better observe and understand about the life of bees and interact more closely with them in a safe manner.
If you’re becoming the first new Premium Subscriber today, I would be happy to sponsor you one of those BeeBoxes (you’d need to collect or arrange for a pickup in Germany though) to help you start your own bee keeper career.
Who knows, you may even end up doing research as Viktor Grebennikov9 did, leading to ground-breaking results in areas such as levitation or anti-gravity:
Building a flying saucer or not might be secondary, but with the bee’s fresh produce coming from your own backyard, one day we might be able to safely reprogram our genes with the emerging science of nutrigenomics10.
Food for the bees is food for your thoughts.
Best,
Toby
modern farmer: The Strange History of ‘Mad Honey’.
Tim Truth’s Substack: Australia NSW Government Is MASS MURDERING Hundreds Of Millions Of Bees.
Wikipedia: Viktor Grebennikov.
EMBO reports: Histone deacetylase inhibitor activity in royal jelly might facilitate caste switching in bees.
Science: Nutritional Control of Reproductive Status in Honeybees via DNA Methylation.
Cell (Trends in Biochemical Sciences): Metabolism and the Epigenome: A Dynamic Relationship.
Nature: Epigenetic regulation of ageing — linking environmental inputs to genomic stability.
The Pollinators: https://youtu.be/HaYNXWMS2Gw
The Science Behind Honey’s Eternal Shelf Life: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-science-behind-honeys-eternal-shelf-life-1218690/